The Kopje Garrison: A Story of the Boer War

Chapter Thirty Two.

An Unpleasant Business

“Why, Roby!” cried Lennox, after standing for some moments gazing wildly at his brother officer, and then going close up to his rough resting-place. “For goodness’ sake, don’t talk in that way!”

“Coward! Cur! To run away and leave me like that!” cried Roby.

Lennox stared at him with his eyes dilating, and then he turned sharply and looked from Dickenson to the doctor and back again, ending by clapping his hands to his forehead and holding his breath before gazing wildly at Roby once more as if doubting that the torrent of reproaches he listened to were real.

“Am I off my head a little, doctor? – the sun, and that dreadful thirst. Am I mad?”

“Mad? No, my lad; but you’re in a parlous state. – Here, orderly, I must have Mr Lennox in the next hut. He is exciting Captain Roby horribly.”

“Yes; horribly,” said Lennox. “Poor fellow! Is he so bad as that?”

“Oh yes, he’s bad enough,” said the doctor gruffly.

“Corporal May, too,” said Lennox, with a troubled look at the other patients occupying the hut. “Are you much hurt, May?”

For answer the man glared at him and turned his face away, making Lennox wince again and look at the other patient. But he was lying fast asleep.

“Rather a queer welcome,” said the young officer, turning now to Dickenson, and once more his eyes dilated with a wondering look. “Why, Bob, you’re not going to call me a coward too?”

“Likely!” said the young man gruffly.

“Don’t stand talking to him, Mr Dickenson,” said the doctor sharply. – “Here, lean on the orderly, sir; he’ll help you into the next hut. I want to try and diagnose your case.”

“Yes – please if it’s necessary,” said Lennox, catching at the orderly as if attacked by vertigo. – “Thank you, old fellow,” he whispered huskily as Dickenson started forward and caught him by the other arm. “Not much the matter. Gone through a good deal. Faint. The sun. Touch of stroke, I think.”

He hung heavily upon the pair, who assisted him out into the next hut, while Roby’s accusation was reiterated, the words ringing in his ears: “Coward! – cur! – runaway!” till he was out of sight, when Roby sank back exhausted.

“Don’t question him, and don’t let him talk about what he has gone through,” said the doctor a short time later, when he had made his fresh patient as comfortable as circumstances would allow, and he was growing drowsy from the sedative administered. “It’s not sunstroke, but a mingling of the results of exposure and overdoing it altogether. I don’t quite understand it yet, and I want to get at the truth without asking him.”

“Oh doctor! don’t you join in thinking the poor fellow has been behaving in a cowardly way.”

“Tchah! Rubbish! What is it to me, sir, how the man has been behaving? He’s all wrong, isn’t he?”

“Yes; terribly.”

“Very well, then, I’ve got to put him all right. If he has committed any breach of discipline you can court-martial him when I’ve done.”

“But, hang it all, doctor!” cried Dickenson fiercely, “you don’t believe he’s a coward?”

“Humph! Very evident you don’t, my lad,” said the doctor grimly.

“Of course not.”

“That’s right; then stick to it. I like to see a man back up his friend.”

“Who wouldn’t back him up?” cried Dickenson.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s very evident that Roby won’t.”

“Roby’s as mad as a March hare,” cried Dickenson.

“Well, not quite; but he’s a bit queer in his head, and I’m afraid I shall have to perform rather a crucial operation upon him. I don’t want to if I can help it, out here. It requires skilled help, and I should like some one to share the responsibility.”

“Internally injured?” asked Dickenson.

“Oh no. The bullet that ploughed up his forehead is pressing a piece of bone down slightly on the brain.”

“Slightly!” said Dickenson, with a laugh. “Turned it right over, I think.”

“Yes, you fellows who know nothing about your construction do get a good many absurd ideas in your head. Here, talk softly; I want to get at the cause of his trouble. He’s not wounded.”

“Why, his skull’s ploughed up, and the bone pressing on his brain.”

“Do you mean that for a joke – a bit of chaff, Mr Dickenson?” said the doctor stiffly.

“A joke, sir? Is this a subject to joke about?” replied Dickenson.

“Certainly not, sir; but you thoughtless young fellows are ready to laugh at anything.”

“Well, sir, you’re wrong. Roby and I were never very great friends, but I’m not such a brute as to laugh and sneer when the poor fellow’s down.”

“Who was talking about Captain Roby?”

“You were, sir. You told me that his brain was suffering from pressure, and then you went on to say that you wanted to get at the cause of his hurt.”

“Bah! Tchah! Nonsense, man! I was talking then about Lennox.”

“I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Oh, all right, my lad. Now then; I’m talking about Lennox now. I say I want to get at the cause of his trouble without questioning him and setting his poor feverish brain working. Tell me how you found him.”

Dickenson briefly explained.

“Humph! Utterly exhausted; been suffering from the sun, thirst, and evidently after exerting himself tremendously. Been in a complete stupor more than sleep, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s very strange,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “He was in the assault, wasn’t he?”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“Well, human nature’s a queer thing, Dickenson, my lad.”

“Yes, sir; very,” said the young man gruffly, “or Roby wouldn’t behave like this and set that sneak May off on the same track.”

“And,” continued the doctor testily, as if he did not like being interrupted, “the more I examine into man’s nature the more curious and contradictory I find it – I mean, in the mental faculties.”

“I suppose so, sir. – What’s he aiming at?” added the young officer to himself.

“Now, look here, Dickenson, my lad; between ourselves, that was rather a horrible bit of business, eh? – that attack in the half-darkness.”

“Well, sir, it wasn’t quite like an al fresco ball,” said Dickenson gruffly.

“Of course not. Bayoneting and bludgeoning with rifle-butts?”

Dickenson nodded.

“And all on the top of the excitement of the march and the long waiting to begin?”

“Just so, sir,” said Dickenson.

“Enough to over-excite a young fellow’s brain?”

“Well – yes, sir; it’s not at all cheerful work. But, really, I don’t see what you mean.”

“Just this, my dear boy, and, as I said, between ourselves. You don’t think, do you, that just in the midst of the fight poor Lennox was seized with what you vulgar young fellows call a fit of blue funk, do you?”

“No, sir, I do not,” said Dickenson stiffly. “Certainly not.”

“Lost his nerve?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ve lost mine before now, my lad, over a very serious operation – when I was young, you know.”

“May be, sir; but Drew Lennox is not the sort of fellow for that.”

“As a rule, say.”

“Yes, as a rule, sir, without a single exception.”

“And took fright and ran?”

“Rubbish, sir! He couldn’t.”

“Just as Roby says?”

“Roby’s mad.”

“And as Corporal May holds to in corroboration?”

“No, sir, no; and I should like to see Corporal May flogged.”

“Rather an unpleasant sight, my lad,” said the doctor quietly, “even when a culprit richly deserves it. But about Lennox. He might, though as a rule brave as a lion, have had a seizure like that.”

“No, he mightn’t sir,” said Dickenson stoutly.

“You don’t know, my lad.”

“Oh yes, I do, sir. I know Drew Lennox by heart.”

“But there is such a thing as panic, my lad.”

“Not with him, sir.”

“I say yes, my lad. Recollect that he had a terrible shock a little while ago.” Dickenson’s lips parted. “He was plunged into that awful hole in the dark, and whirled through some underground tunnel. Why, sir, I went and looked at the place myself with Sergeant James, and he let down a lantern for me to see. I tell you what it is; I’m as hard as most men, through going about amongst horrors, but that black pit made me feel wet inside my hands. I wonder the poor fellow retained his reason.”

“But he got the better of that, sir,” said Dickenson hoarsely.

“How do you know, sir? He seemed better; but a man can’t go through such things as that without their leaving some weakening of the mental force.”

“Doctor, don’t talk like that, for goodness’ sake!”

“I must, my lad, because I think – mind you, I say I think – ”

“Doctor, if you begin to think Drew Lennox is a coward I’ll never respect you again,” cried Dickenson angrily.

“I don’t think he’s a coward, my dear boy,” said the doctor, laying his hand upon the young officer’s arm. “I think he’s as brave a lad as ever stepped, and I like him; but no man is perfect, and the result of that horrible plunge into the bowels of the earth shook him so that in that fierce fight he grew for a bit very weak indeed.”

“Impossible, doctor!” cried the young man fiercely.

“Quite possible,” said the doctor, pressing his companion’s arm; “and now let me finish. I tell you, I like Drew Lennox, and if I am right I shall think none the less of him.”

“Ur-r-r-r!” growled Dickenson.

“It is between ourselves, mind, and it is only my theory. He lost his nerve in the middle of that fight – had a fit of panic, and, as Roby and the corporal say (very cruelly and bitterly), ran for his life – bolted.”

“I’ll never believe it, sir.”

“Well, remain a heretic if you like; but that’s my theory.”

“I tell you, sir – ”

“Wait a minute, my lad; I haven’t done. I suggest that he had this seizure – ”

“And I swear he had not!”

“Wait till I’ve finished, boy,” said the doctor sternly.

Dickenson stood with his brow knit and his fists clenched, almost writhing in his anger; and the doctor went on:

“I suggest, my dear boy, that he had this fit of panic and was aware that it must be known, when, after running right away – ”

“Yes, sir; go on,” said Dickenson savagely – “after running away – ”

“He came quite to himself, felt that he would be branded as a coward by all who knew him, and then, in a mad fit of despair – ”

“Yes, sir – and then?”

“You told me that he came back without his revolver.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dickenson mockingly – “and then he didn’t blow his brains out.”

“No,” said the doctor quietly, “for he had lost his pistol, perhaps in the fight; but it seems to me, Dickenson, that in his agony of shame, despair, and madness, he tried to hang himself.”

“Tried to do what?” roared Dickenson.

“What I say, my dear boy,” said the doctor gravely.

“I say, doctor, have you been too much in the sun?” said Dickenson, with a forced laugh, one which sounded painful in the extreme.

“No, my dear fellow; I am perfectly calm, and everything points to the fact – his state when you found him, sorrowful, repentant, and utterly exhausted by his sufferings in his struggles to get back to face it out like a man.”

“Doctor, you are raving. His appearance was all compatible with a struggle, fighting with the Boers – a prisoner bravely fighting for his escape. Everything points to your fact? Nonsense, sir – absurd!”

“You’re a brave, true-hearted fellow, Dickenson, my lad, and I like you none the less for being so rude to me in your defence of your poor friend. He must be sleeping now after the dose I gave him. Come with me, and I’ll give you a surprise.”

“Not such a one as you have already given me, doctor,” said the young man bitterly.

“We shall see,” said the doctor quietly; and the next minute he was standing by Lennox’s side, carefully lifting a moistened bandage laid close to his neck.

Dickenson uttered a faint cry of horror. For deeply marked in his friend’s terribly swollen neck there was a deep blue mark such as would have been caused by a tightened cord, and in places the skin was torn away, leaving visible the eroded flesh.

“Oh doctor!” groaned Dickenson, trembling violently.

“Hold up, my dear boy,” whispered his companion. “No one knows of it but my orderly, you, and myself. It will soon heal up, and I shall not feel it my duty to mention it to a soul.”

Chapter Thirty Three.

The Tale he told

“Look here, Roby,” said Dickenson, three or four days later, when, having a little time on his hands – the Boers, consequent upon their late defeat, having been very quiet – he went in to sit with the captain of his company, finding him calm and composed, and ready to talk about the injury to his head, which seemed to be healing fast.

“Precious lucky for me, Dickenson,” he said; “an inch lower and there would have been promotion for somebody. Narrow escape, wasn’t it?”

“Awfully.”

“Such a nuisance, too, lying up in this oven. I tell Emden that I should get better much faster if he’d let me get up and go about; but he will not listen.”

“Of course not; you’re best where you are. You couldn’t wear your helmet.”

“My word, no! Head’s awfully tender. It makes me frightfully wild sometimes when I think of the cowardly way in which that cur Lennox – ”

“Hold hard!” cried Dickenson, frowning. “Look here, Roby; you got that crotchet into your head in the delirium that followed your wound. You’re getting better now and talk like a sane man, so just drop that nonsense.”

“Nonsense?”

“Yes; horrible nonsense. Have you thought of the mischief you are doing by making such a charge?”

“Thought till my head has seemed on fire. He’ll have to leave the regiment, and a good job too.”

“Of course, over a craze.”

“Craze, sir? It’s a simple fact – the honest truth. Ask Corporal May there. – It’s true, isn’t it, May?”

“Oh yes, sir; it’s true enough,” said the corporal, “though I’m sorry enough to have to say it of my officer.”

“It doesn’t seem like it, sir,” said Dickenson in a voice full of exasperation.

“No, sir; you think so because you always were Mr Lennox’s friend. But it ain’t my business, and I don’t want to speak about it. I never do unless I’m obliged.”

“You – you worm!” cried Dickenson, for he could think of nothing better to say. “Have you ever thought it would have been much better, after your bit of fright in the cavern, if Mr Lennox had left you to take your chance, instead of risking his life to save yours?”

“No, sir; I ain’t never thought that,” whined the man; “but I was very grateful to him for what he did, and that’s what keeps me back and makes me feel so ill speaking about him. I wouldn’t say a word, sir, but you see I must speak the truth.”

“Speak the truth!” growled Dickenson as he turned angrily away. “Look here, Roby, if I stop here much longer I shall get myself into trouble for kicking a patient. Now, once more, look here. You’ve done an awful lot of mischief by what you said when your fit of delirium was on you, and you’re in such a weak state now that as soon as you begin thinking about Lennox you make yourself worse by bringing the crazy feeling back again.”

“Crazy feeling? Bah! I know what I’m saying. A coward! I wish the old days were back. I’d call him out and shoot him.”

“No, you wouldn’t, for you’d have to wait till the doctor took you off his list, and by that time you’d be quite back in your right senses.”

“Robert Dickenson!” cried Roby, flushing scarlet, and his features growing convulsed.

“Yes, that’s my name; but I’m not going to submit to a bullying from the doctor for exciting his patient. Good-bye. Make haste and get well. I can’t stop here.”

“Stay where you are,” shouted Roby furiously. “Drew Lennox is – ”

“My friend,” muttered Dickenson, rushing out. “Poor fellow! I suppose he believes it; but he doesn’t know how bad he is. It’s queer. That idea regularly maddens him. Hullo! here’s the boss.”

“Ah, Dickenson, my lad! Been to cheer up Roby?”

“Yes, sir; I’ve been to cheer him up a bit,” said Dickenson.

“That’s right. Getting on nicely, isn’t he?”

“Ye-es.”

“What do you mean with your spun-out ‘yes’?”

“I thought he seemed a little queer in the head yet.”

“Oh yes, and that will last for a while, no doubt. But he’s mending wonderfully, and I’m beginning to hope that there will be no need for the operation: nature is doing the work herself.”

“That’s right, sir,” said Dickenson dryly. “I’d encourage her to go on.”

The doctor smiled.

“Going to see Lennox?”

“If I may.”

“Oh yes, you may go now. He’s getting on too: picking up strength. Don’t let him talk too much, and don’t mention a word about that report of Roby’s.”

“Certainly not,” said Dickenson; and the doctor passing on, the young officer entered the next hut, to find his friend looking hollow-eyed and pulled down, the nerves at the corners of his eyes twitching as he slept.

Dickenson sat down upon a box watching him, and it was as if his presence there acted upon the patient, who, at the end of a few minutes, opened his eyes and smiled.

“How strange!” he said, holding out his hand.

“What’s strange?”

“I was dreaming about you. How long have you been there?”

“Five or ten minutes.”

“How are things going on?”

“Pretty quiet.”

“No news of relief?”

“Not the slightest. We seem to be quite forgotten out here in this corner.”

“Oh – no,” said Lennox; “we’re not forgotten. The country is so big, and our men are kept busy in other directions.”

He turned as he spoke to got into an easier position, and then winced, uttering an ejaculation indicating the pain he felt.

“Why didn’t you speak, and let me help you?” said Dickenson.

“Because I want to be independent. It was nothing. Only my neck; it’s awfully sore still.”

Dickenson winced now in turn. A chill ran through him, and his forehead contracted with pain; but Lennox did not grasp the feeling of horror and misery which ran through his friend.

“I shall be precious glad when it’s better,” continued Lennox. “Did I tell you how it got in this state?”

“No. Don’t talk about it,” said Dickenson shortly.

“Why not? I’m all right now. Have I been raving at all?”

“Not that I have heard.”

“I wonder at it, for until this morning I’ve felt half my time as if I were in a nightmare.”

“Look here; the doctor said that you were to be kept perfectly quiet, and that I was not to encourage you to talk.”

“Good old man. Well, I’m as quiet as a mouse, and you are not going to encourage me to talk. I haven’t felt inclined to, either, since I got back. I don’t suppose it has been so, but I’ve felt as if all the veins in my head were swollen up, and it has made me stupid and strange, and as if I couldn’t say what I wanted, and I haven’t tried to speak for fear I should wander away. But I say, Bob, did I go in to see Roby lying wounded when I came back?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, then that wasn’t imagination. It’s like something seen through a mist. It has all been like looking through glass cloudy and thick over since we rushed the Boers.”

“Look here,” said Dickenson, rising; “I must go now.”

“Nonsense; you’ve only just come. Sit down, man; you won’t hurt me. Do me good. – That’s right. I want to ask you something.”

“No, no; you’d better not talk.”

“What nonsense! I’m beginning to suffer now from what fine people call ennui. Not much in my way, old fellow. You’re doing me good. I say, look here. Something has been bothering me like in my dreams. You say I did go in to see poor Roby?”

“Yes; but look here, Drew, old man,” cried Dickenson, “if you get on that topic I must go.”

“No, no; stay. I want to separate the fancy from the real. I’ve got an idea in my head that Roby turned upon me in a fit of raving, and called me a coward and a cur for running away and leaving him. Did I dream that?”

“No,” said Dickenson huskily. “He has been a good deal off his head. He did shout something of that sort at you.”

“Poor fellow!” said Lennox quietly. “But how horrible! Shot in the forehead, wasn’t he?”

“Bullet ploughed open the top of his head.”

“I didn’t see what was wrong with him in the rush. I can remember now, quite clearly, seeing him go down, with his face streaming with blood.”

“You recollect that?” said Dickenson excitedly, in spite of himself.

“Oh yes. The light was coming fast, and we were near where a lot of the Boers were making for their mounts to get them away. One big fellow was leading his pony, and as poor Roby was straggling blindly about, this Boer ran at him, holding his rein in one hand, his rifle in the other, and I saw him shorten it with his right to turn it into a club to bring it down on Roby’s head.”

“All!” cried Dickenson, with increasing excitement, and he waited by Lennox, who ceased speaking, and lay gazing calmly at the door. Then all the doctor’s warnings were forgotten, and the visitor said hoarsely, “Well, go on. Why don’t you speak?”

“Oh, I don’t want to begin blowing about what I did,” said Lennox quietly.

“But I want to hear,” said Dickenson. “Go on – the Boer raised his rifle to bash it down on Roby’s head. What then?”

“Well, he didn’t. I was obliged to cut him down. Then the pony jerked itself free and galloped off.”

“And you ran to catch it?” cried Dickenson excitedly.

“Nonsense!” said Lennox, laughing. “Why should I do that? What did I want with the pony, unless it might have been to get poor Roby across its back? But I never thought of it. I only thought of getting him on mine.”